Brimham Rocks, once known as Brimham Crags, is a 183.9-hectare (454-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Geological Conservation Review (GCR) site, 8 miles (13 km) north-west of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, on Brimham Moor in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site, notified as SSSI in 1958, is an outcrop of Millstone Grit, with small areas of birch woodland and a large area of wet and dry heath.
Brimham Rocks has SSSI status because of the value of its geology and the upland woodland and the acidic wet and dry heath habitats that support localised and specialised plant forms, such as chickweed wintergreen, cowberry, bog asphodel and three species of heather. south of Ripon on Brimham Moor in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in North Yorkshire. It is north of Summerbridge and east of Pateley Bridge and the River Nidd. The site is managed by the National Trust along with a visitor's centre, public facilities and a car park. Brimham Rocks is open throughout the year between around 8.30 am and dusk, but on 21 March 2020 closed due to the coronavirus outbreak in the United Kingdom. The site reopened fully in the summer of 2021, following the lifting of the UK Government measures to deal with COVID-19.
The site was SSSI notified in 1958, with revisions in 1984 and on 19 February 1988. The site was listed for the value of its geology and because the "heath and bog habitats represent important examples of plant communities, formerly more widespread, which have been reduced by agricultural improvement, drainage and afforestation." Associated with the more well-known rocky outcrops, are birch woodland, acidic bogs, wet and dry heath, and plant communities which thrive when sheltered between the rocks and exposed on the moor. The rock which has traditionally been referred to as Millstone Grit, originated as river-deposited sands in a delta environment and contains both feldspar and quartz pebbles. Deposition from moving water has resulted in the cross-bedding which is very evident in most of the outcrops. Brimham Rocks has been described as "a classic geomorphological site, significant for studies of past and present weathering processes and their contribution to landscape evolution."
Although discussion continues around the formation and date of tors such as these throughout Britain, much of the development into the forms displayed at Brimham is likely to have taken place over the last 100,000 years before, during and after the last ice age – the Devensian. Some disintegration of the rock strata may have occurred along weaknesses such as fault and fracture planes whilst still buried. Sub-aerial weathering has continued the process. The outcrops were exposed when glacial action, gelifluction and further weathering and water erosion removed the loose material which separated them. Erosion continues, caused by weather and tourist numbers. One possibility for the mushroom shape of some stones is that they were exposed to sandblasting at ground level when an ice cap melted 18,000 years ago, narrowing the bases of outcrops, then they were subject to all-over sandblasting when the ice had gone, causing the irregular shapes. Their theories coincided with the growth of Neo-Druidism, and followed the 1760 publication of James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry. After a lecture in 1786,
Crime
In August 2014 the body of Gemma Simpson was found at Brimham Rocks. That December Martin Bell, who had schizophrenia, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and was sentenced to a minimum of twelve years' imprisonment. In May 2000 he had smoked cannabis with her, "bludgeoned and stabbed" her to death, left her in a bath for some days, dismembered her, then buried her body at a secret location at Brimham Rocks for fourteen years. In July 2014 he confessed to the murder and disclosed the location of the body, at Scarborough police station.
Poetry
thumb|alt=Detail of the artwork 'Balancing Act' by poet Simon Armitage with artist Adrian Riley at Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire|'Balancing Act' by poet Simon Armitage with artist Adrian Riley at Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire (detail).
Poet Laureate Simon Armitage was commissioned by the National Trust to write a poem about the rocks. His "Balancing Act" is carved into a stone artwork of the same name created by artist Adrian Riley and stonemason Richard Dawson erected at the rocks in June 2023.
Tourism
History of Rocks House
thumb|right|Rocks House with Tea House and market garden, pre-1914
This is a Grade II listed building, built in 1792 for Lord Grantley, who used it as a hunting lodge and "for the accommodation of visitors," who came to see the rocks for their sublime aesthetic. The visitor's centre, now called Brimham House, used to be called The Rocks House or Rock House, and between around 1792 and 1900 it was the home of Brimham Rocks' caretakers, and run as a souvenir shop, with an adjacent wooden tea house. In 1838, Rock House provided "tea, coffee or luncheon ... lemonade, ginger beer and cigars ... hay, corn and good stabling for horses," plus the use of a telescope. From 1987 there has been a shop and information centre at the house, which has been extended for staff accommodation, and fitted with solar panels. At some point in the 20th century, Rocks House was renamed Brimham House. He was 95 years old when he died, and he "had been for more than thirty years successively the strangers' attendant at Brimham Rocks ... This veteran was very generally known."
Richard and Hannah Weatherhead: In late 1836, Rocks House tenants Richard (Hartwith ca.1802 – Pateley Bridge 1877) and Hannah (Hartwith ca.1796 – Pateley Bridge 1885) Weatherhead were fined £50 with £4 costs "for selling spirituous liquors and tobacco without a licence." They had already been fined £25 that year for the same offence, but nevertheless paid up immediately. The Yorkshire Gazette said that "it may be presumed that they have a pretty good trade." By 1862 the couple were providing guided tours, besides a continuation of the refreshment business at Rocks House, with teas besides "refreshments." J.R. Walbran (1849) described them as "an original couple, who, for the customary remuneration, regale all comers with tea, coffee, and refreshments, in such Yorkshire style, as many of our fair southern friends will not readily forget." became tenant in 1882, using Rocks House for visitor entertainment, Brown died aged 62 years on 24 May 1914 after hitching a lift on the side of a motor charabanc on its way to Rocks House: Brown died at Harrogate Infirmary, and was buried in St Jude's churchyard, Hartwith. At the inquest, the jury recommended that the large North Eastern Railway motor charabancs should no longer be permitted to pass between the rocks between the entrance and Rocks House.
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Brimham Rocks, William Brown.jpg|William Brown and family on the Rocking Stones, 1882
Brimham Rocks MSH postcard collection (13).jpg|View from Rocks House, with motor charabanc, before 1914
St Jude Hartwith 22 February 2020 (1).JPG|Gravestone of William and Isabel Brown
Brimham Rocks 7 Feb 2020 (9).JPG|Tourist souvenir with fanciful coat of arms, caveman and Druid supporters and pet dog crest, 1900–1939
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Fred and Mary Ann Burn: The next tenants at Rocks House were Fred (Kilburn 1867 – Durham 1943) and Mary Ann Burn, who were in residence by 1920. Fred had previously been a drayman for a mineral water company near Doncaster. In the field in front of the house they grew produce, they fed the tourists in the Tea House, an ex-army hut placed next the house, and drew their water at Druid's Cave Farm below the rocks, using a "horse-drawn barrel" to cart it uphill. In 1928 they caused some embarrassment by charging the Bishop of Ripon and his congregation sixpence per head to attend a service at the Rocks, without the knowledge of Sir William Aykroyd who owned the land. By 1937 they had moved to Durham, and were succeeded by their son-in-law Frank Dale and their daughter Doris at Rocks House, for a year. and his wife Annie (b. Hartwith ca.1877) of High Woods Farm, Brimham Moor and Gate Eel Farm, Dacre. It was under Houseman that the house "fell into disrepair", while Essie continued to farm, his wife serving tea in summer from the Tea House. The Tea House was destroyed by fire in 1948, the year when Essie died. It was replaced by a caravan, where Mrs Carrick continued to provide the teas until 1970 when the National Trust assumed responsibility.